We are all enlisted
While waiting for church to start a few weeks ago, Ella heard me sing this song quietly and thought I sang this
"We are enlisted till the conflict is o'er
HAPPY HALLOWEEN, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!"
See there is a hymn for everything!
As soon as Oct 1st, rolls around, I dig out our super awesome Halloween tape of music I learned in Kindergarten. That's right. It's the best and it will be one sad day when that tape breaks...or tape players disappear for good. The first song on the tape is "Love in any Language" and I still remember performing that when I was five. (Does it scare anyone else that kids will be able to remember that far back...as a parent, I worry what Ella will remember. The good stuff I hope :)
As usual, since Bob works Halloween, we did our family partying throughout the week. Starting with Pumpkin painting (Bob has bloody memories with carving and Ella prefers this) James tried to paint his yellow, but I finally convinced him to use another color--and that was the end of the blue.
(She really didn't paint in her PJs :)
And instead of music while we painted, we watched "Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein." We turned the screen down to shield our children at scary parts and chose not to explain what "surgery" was planned...It did scare James a bit, but when it was over, he put his costume on and walked around the house, like Count Dracula. He even wore a cape (about 2 1/2 ft too tall for him) and hid his face with it.
All week I had been planning and helping with Ella's school party. Yes, I joined PTO (No one told me not to...) and created most of the signs for the games. I used dry erase crayons. Anyone else ever heard of them or am I slow? They were so fun, and erasable, when, I mean, if I made a mistake. Of course after making the posters and getting the kids excited about the carnival, we had to go!
Ella had a butterfly painted on and James asked for the same...I thought a bat might be a better choice (Thank you, Dracula)
Bob felt bad about missing the carnival, but with work, we understand. He made it up, though. We have been planing on 3 things to do for our family Halloween and all 3 fell through.
1) Grandma McLane was asleep (again) when we went to see her
2) Boo at the Zoo was closed, even though it was advertised to be open
3) The train we rode last year broke down the night before we got there
So we resorted to our backup plan--Staw Maze. Bob and I got lost for over an 2 hours a few weeks ago. We had tried to go to the BYUI Planetarium to see a "Black Holes" program, but apparently everyone else wanted to see it too. So we sat down and twiddled our thumbs, trying to figure out a backup plan. DUH! It's October! Lots of mazes to chose from. The one by Big Juds had tunnels we had to crawl through...definitely not going to that one again this year. So the "Old Fashioned Fun" straw maze was cheaper and seemed more kid friendly. It was! There was an animal farm, kids straw maze and family maze: all for less than the tunnel maze. Whoo hoo
We still got lost (in the big maze behind the kids), but at least this maze had emergency exits, and props so you could visually mark where you had been... We let Ella lead most of the time. It was really funny to hear James say "dead end" every few seconds.
We saw an ad for a jack-o-latern pizza and decided to make our own. As well as jiggly brains, mummy dogs and homemade apple cider (using our abundance of apples from our ONE apple tree) to round off our dinners.
Too bad the plate wasn't clear. It looked awesome...and felt kind of rubbery :)
These were a "quick hurry and eat something before the home teachers come over" snack and the others were for dinner after they left.
Today, I helped with Ella's class party (I got pulled in last week to do the craft...okay, I volunteered, knowing they needed help) We made ghosts, using the souls of the kids feet and then added googly eyes, pipe cleaners for arms and craft puffy balls for decoration. Fast, easy and fun.
Some of the pumpkins were given to us (Thanks!) on the condition we come back to go Trick or Treating at their house. I guess I'm not getting out of it this year. Michelle joined us for the fun. James tried to give his candy back at the house we got the pumpkins. I think he was trying to "pay." :) He quickly did get the hang of it:
Look cute
Put candy in bag
Say thank you and your welcome
Go to the next house and do it again.
After 4 houses, I convinced them to go to one more (Ric's house--our landlord) and then go home to watch a movie. It worked! And they were so happy to have a small bag of treats to enjoy during the movie, they didn't even know what they we missing. I don't think I will be so lucky next year.
Happy Halloween to you all!
Anyone else have a real pony dressed as a ghost come to visit? Only in the country!
"We are enlisted till the conflict is o'er
HAPPY HALLOWEEN, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!"
See there is a hymn for everything!
As soon as Oct 1st, rolls around, I dig out our super awesome Halloween tape of music I learned in Kindergarten. That's right. It's the best and it will be one sad day when that tape breaks...or tape players disappear for good. The first song on the tape is "Love in any Language" and I still remember performing that when I was five. (Does it scare anyone else that kids will be able to remember that far back...as a parent, I worry what Ella will remember. The good stuff I hope :)
As usual, since Bob works Halloween, we did our family partying throughout the week. Starting with Pumpkin painting (Bob has bloody memories with carving and Ella prefers this) James tried to paint his yellow, but I finally convinced him to use another color--and that was the end of the blue.
(She really didn't paint in her PJs :)
And instead of music while we painted, we watched "Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein." We turned the screen down to shield our children at scary parts and chose not to explain what "surgery" was planned...It did scare James a bit, but when it was over, he put his costume on and walked around the house, like Count Dracula. He even wore a cape (about 2 1/2 ft too tall for him) and hid his face with it.
All week I had been planning and helping with Ella's school party. Yes, I joined PTO (No one told me not to...) and created most of the signs for the games. I used dry erase crayons. Anyone else ever heard of them or am I slow? They were so fun, and erasable, when, I mean, if I made a mistake. Of course after making the posters and getting the kids excited about the carnival, we had to go!
Ella had a butterfly painted on and James asked for the same...I thought a bat might be a better choice (Thank you, Dracula)
Bob felt bad about missing the carnival, but with work, we understand. He made it up, though. We have been planing on 3 things to do for our family Halloween and all 3 fell through.
1) Grandma McLane was asleep (again) when we went to see her
2) Boo at the Zoo was closed, even though it was advertised to be open
3) The train we rode last year broke down the night before we got there
So we resorted to our backup plan--Staw Maze. Bob and I got lost for over an 2 hours a few weeks ago. We had tried to go to the BYUI Planetarium to see a "Black Holes" program, but apparently everyone else wanted to see it too. So we sat down and twiddled our thumbs, trying to figure out a backup plan. DUH! It's October! Lots of mazes to chose from. The one by Big Juds had tunnels we had to crawl through...definitely not going to that one again this year. So the "Old Fashioned Fun" straw maze was cheaper and seemed more kid friendly. It was! There was an animal farm, kids straw maze and family maze: all for less than the tunnel maze. Whoo hoo
We still got lost (in the big maze behind the kids), but at least this maze had emergency exits, and props so you could visually mark where you had been... We let Ella lead most of the time. It was really funny to hear James say "dead end" every few seconds.
We saw an ad for a jack-o-latern pizza and decided to make our own. As well as jiggly brains, mummy dogs and homemade apple cider (using our abundance of apples from our ONE apple tree) to round off our dinners.
Too bad the plate wasn't clear. It looked awesome...and felt kind of rubbery :)
These were a "quick hurry and eat something before the home teachers come over" snack and the others were for dinner after they left.
Today, I helped with Ella's class party (I got pulled in last week to do the craft...okay, I volunteered, knowing they needed help) We made ghosts, using the souls of the kids feet and then added googly eyes, pipe cleaners for arms and craft puffy balls for decoration. Fast, easy and fun.
Some of the pumpkins were given to us (Thanks!) on the condition we come back to go Trick or Treating at their house. I guess I'm not getting out of it this year. Michelle joined us for the fun. James tried to give his candy back at the house we got the pumpkins. I think he was trying to "pay." :) He quickly did get the hang of it:
Look cute
Put candy in bag
Say thank you and your welcome
Go to the next house and do it again.
After 4 houses, I convinced them to go to one more (Ric's house--our landlord) and then go home to watch a movie. It worked! And they were so happy to have a small bag of treats to enjoy during the movie, they didn't even know what they we missing. I don't think I will be so lucky next year.
Happy Halloween to you all!
Anyone else have a real pony dressed as a ghost come to visit? Only in the country!
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